Obsession
by Yellow Mask
Summary: Complete. Dark subject matter. Obsession is always dangerous...why is Roll having so many nightmares? RockmanRoll. Dark, onesided Dark RockmanRoll.
1. Prologue

**Obsession**

**By Yellow Mask**

**Spoilers:** Dark Rockman saga

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Rockman or any related characters.

**Prologue**

_"I'd rather not hurt you. And I am sure you do not enjoy this…"_

_Pain, a hideous, electrifying agony beyond description. She screamed – it was all she could do._

_"What will it be, my little butterfly?"_

"Roll…"

"_What will it be?"_

"Roll!"

"_Yes…or no?"_

"ROLL!"

Roll's eyes snapped open. She bolted upright in her PET, trembling slightly as she shook off the remnants of her nightmare.

"Are you okay?" Meiru's worried face appeared in her vision. "You were moaning and whimpering, almost screaming."

"I'm alright," Roll tried to smile reassuringly, but it looked more like a grimace. "It was just a nightmare."

"I didn't know navis dreamed," Meiru muttered, sounding almost chagrined for not knowing more about her friend.

"We dream," Roll nodded. "But it's not usually so…intense…"

Meiru noticed Roll was still shaking. "Are you really okay?"

"I-I've never felt anything like that," Roll swallowed harshly. "I can't really remember what it was about…there were just flashes. But I know I've never been so terrified, I've never felt that kind of…all consuming hopelessness….that kind of bleak despair…"

Simply reliving the nightmare was causing a sickening knot to form in her chest. Roll blinked hard, trying to pull herself out of it.

"So, Meiru," Roll began. "It's a Saturday, where are we going today?"

"We'll take it easy today," her NetOp smiled. "We'll stay at home."

Roll felt a burst of relief, then a sneaking suspicion formed in her mind. "Are you doing this just because of my nightmare?"

When Meiru looked away, Roll knew she was right. "You can't do that just for me!"

"Yes, I can! Roll, look at yourself, you look scared stiff…and I know if I was looking like that, I'd want a relaxing day."

A small, hesitant smile crept over Roll's face, but it was a smile nevertheless. "Thanks, Meiru!"

But she couldn't shake the terrible, crushing dread the nightmare had left her with.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

"Wow, butterflies!" Meiru exclaimed. "They're so beautiful!"

She was walking through the park, delighted by the clouds of rainbow wings that rose in her wake. Roll tried to smile, but found it difficult as the memory of last night's dream flashed through her mind.

"_My little butterfly…you're so beautiful…"_

The nightmares would not leave. Each night for nearly a week, Roll would shut her eyes and fall into the dream. What the unseen speaker said varied from night to night, but the voice was always the same. The voice that sounded cruel and threatening, but hauntingly familiar.

She did her best to throw off the nightmare when she awoke. She could tell Meiru was worried. The girl was trying to make things easy for her, but once the weekend ended and she was back at school there was only so much she could do.

For her part, Roll was getting irritated with herself. They were just dreams. Nothing that could actually hurt her. They were simply figments of her imagination, a construct, a fairytale. Completely insubstantial and utterly incapable of damaging her.

And yet…

Whenever she so much as thought of them, she wanted to crawl away and hide. Maybe it was their persistence, the way she never slept a night without them. Or maybe it was the quiet menace in the voice she heard, the promise of horrors to come.

Either way, the dreams drained her. Meiru noticed, and was doing the best she could. She let Roll go to sleep before her, and woke her up only when she was about to leave for school, trying to let have as much sleep as possible to compensate for what the nightmares took from her.

The navis had noticed too. Rockman was the first to comment on it, remarking that she seemed unusually tired. She'd mouthed some excuse about a weird dream (which wasn't exactly a lie – the dream had been weird, she just hadn't told him it was terrifying) and he'd apparently accepted her at her word. Roll was too embarrassed to tell Rockman about her nightmares – after all, whatever had caused them couldn't be nearly as scary as some of the things he had been through.

She wished she could just figure out what had caused them. Meiru had advised her to think about anything that had happened recently that scared or unsettled her. Roll's mind had instantly flown to the events on Duo's Comet…and Dark Rockman.

In truth, Dark Rockman had unsettled Roll more than anything else. When she mentioned this to Meiru, her NetOp asked her what had happened while she and the others were imprisoned by the deranged navi. The waver in Meiru's voice left Roll with no doubt that she had wanted to ask her for some time, but was unsure how to broach the subject and afraid of the answers she would get.

But when Roll told Meiru she couldn't remember, she had been telling her the truth. Everything about her capture was a complete blank, and she could only assume she and the others had been kept in stasis. Nothing else would explain the total lack of even the faintest, foggiest memory relating to her captivity.

The ensuing conflict with Duo had been tense, but hardly anything to lose her head about. There was nothing particularly frightening or traumatic about either incident.

In short, Roll had no idea what had caused the nightmares, and no idea how they could be stopped. All she could do was soldier on, trying to deal with them and the terror they invoked.

**oooooooo**

"_You my little butterfly, you're special."_

_Fear rocked her, but she knew she couldn't give in. "Don't call me that. I'm not a butterfly, and I'm certainly not yours!"_

"_You should be more grateful. I'm offering you a choice, which is more than your friends can say. So, what is your answer?"_

"_NO!"_

Roll woke screaming. At first, she didn't know where the scream was coming from, then she realised her throat was aching. She got her voice under control almost immediately, body still tensed as her mind assimilated the fact that she was safe in her PET. She was safe, not…not wherever she had dreamed she was.

"Roll?"

Meiru took one look at her navi and knew what had happened. "That dream again?"

"Y-yeah."

Meiru's gaze was sympathetic and determined at the same time. "One nightmare I can buy, but you've been having the same one for almost a week. This can't be normal."

"No arguments there," Roll said shakily, still quite rattled, "But what can we do?"

Meiru's brow furrowed. "Maybe there's a glitch in whatever program gives you dreams. If that's the case, we can go to Dr. Hikari."

**oooooooo**

"So we've got some new prototypes for the Synchro Chip, and we'd like to test them out," Yuuichiro addressed Enzan and Netto, before being cut off by a small, red-haired whirlwind that rushed into the lab.

"Dr. Hikari!" Meiru called. "I need you to help Roll!"

"Roll!" Rockman yelped. "What happened to her?"

"She keeps having these nightmares-"

Enzan snorted. "I hope you didn't interrupt us for the sake of a few bad dreams, Sakurai."

"Meiru," Yuuichiro began, slightly more delicately. "Navis dream normally, which means they will have some nightmares, it's normal-"

"Is it normal to have the same nightmare for one week straight?" Meiru snapped, overriding them. "Is it normal for the nightmare to leave them as drained as if they'd just fought an entire Netbattle Tournament? Is it normal for them to thrash and cry out in pain? Is it normal for them to wake up screaming?" She didn't care what anyone said, Roll was clearly suffering from something – no matter what Dr. Hikari said, Meiru knew this was far from normal.

To her satisfaction, Yuuichiro looked startled. "Screaming?"

"Screaming?" Rockman echoed. The idea that Roll was having nightmares terrifying enough to make her scream was disturbing.

"Yeah," Roll answered from her PET, feeling embarrassed, like a kid who had wet the bed. But she only had to think on the nightmares before her resolve returned. Anything that might make them better…

"You've woken screaming every night for a week?" Yuuichiro asked, launching into 'professor mode'.

Roll nodded. "Except the first night. Meiru was awake, she realised I was having a nightmare and woke me up."

"Can you describe these dreams?"

Roll shuddered slightly. "There aren't any images, just sounds. Just a voice-"

"What kind of voice?" Netto looked puzzled.

"I don't know. It's male, definitely male, and though he sounds familiar I can't place him. But he sounds…cruel."

Yuuichiro had already urged Meiru to hook Roll up to his computer, and was tapping on the keys as he examined the PET's program. "What does the voice say? Does he tell you to do anything?"

"Whatever he says is different each night, but there are some things that are always the same."

"Such as?"

"He always calls me 'little butterfly', even though I've never been called that by anyone in my life! I don't know what he means by it, but I feel a chill shoot right up my spine whenever he calls me that. And there's always the question-"

"What question?" Rockman asked, not liking this dream one bit. He could see why it had scared her – the sheer sense of mysterious foreboding could be felt even through her simple, bland description.

"I don't know," Roll whispered. "I never actually hear the question. But I know how I have to answer. No. I have to say 'no', and keep saying it, over and over and over. Though I don't have an inkling of what he asked me, I know that to answer 'yes' would be the most horrifying thing I could ever do. But when I say 'no' he gets angry. He hurts me – it feels like having a hundred volts poured into my body – and…and I scream, and then I wake up."

Silence greeted the end of Roll's story.

"How intense are these dreams?" Yuuichiro asked.

"Far more than any others I've ever had. It feels…it feels _real. _ Even when I wake up, it feels more like a memory than a dream."

"I'll check your operating systems," Yuuichiro muttered, "But I have to confess, I've never heard of something like this."

"It does sound very…bizarre." Enzan leaned over Yuuichiro's shoulder as he ran a diagnostic. "Anything unusual?"

Yuuichiro looked frustrated, typing rapid instructions into the computer, then stared intently at the screen. "Nothing," he huffed in frustration. "Roll's operating system is in perfect order."

"Then why's she having those nightmares?" Rockman asked from Netto's PET.

"I don't know," Yuuichiro mused. "I'll install a new Dream Matrix…maybe it's just over heated or something. If that doesn't fix the problem, then come see me again, okay?"

Roll and Meiru nodded.

"It'll be alright, you'll see," Netto encouraged, leaning over to grasp Meiru's hand.

In spite of the situation, Roll managed a giggle at the blush that stained her NetOp's face.

_AN: Never seen Stream, but heard a rumour that Iceman, Glyde and Roll were held captive by the main villain for a while. Don't know if that's true, but it got me thinking. For the purpose of this fic, assume that they were captured by Dark Rockman sometime during his bid for power._


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Roll woke, breathing a silent sigh of relief. As she had for the past four nightmare-free days. It was such a relief, to be able to wake without fear, without feeling as though she didn't sleep an instant.

"Hey, Rockman," she greeted the blue navi who had just appeared in her PET.

"Hey Roll," Rockman grinned. "You're looking better."

"I'm feeling better. I'm so relieved to be able to sleep without waking up in a cold sweat."

"But we don't sweat."

Roll shrugged. "It's a figure of speech."

Rockman scrutinised her carefully. "Are you sure you're okay?"

She nodded, feeling a rush of warmth over his obvious concern. Rockman couldn't hide his relief that she was now free of her disturbing dreams. The idea of Roll screaming in terror every night made him very uncomfortable.

And it seemed a very odd time for him to notice how beautiful she looked when she smiled.

Giving himself a mental slap, he dragged his mind back to the reason he had come to her PET. "By the way, Netto wants to know if he can look over Meiru's biology notes later."

Roll giggled. "I'm sure it'll be fine with Meiru, as usual."

"She does seem to bail Netto out more often than common decency would require," Rockman muttered ruefully.

Another giggle. "It's only because she-" Roll cut herself off, biting her lip before she revealed too much.

Rockman was so transfixed by the image of Roll's full bottom lip wedged between her teeth that, at first, he didn't register her broken sentence. But then his mind caught up.

"What? Because she what?"

"Never mind!" Roll squeaked.

"Come on, tell me," Rockman cajoled.

A shake of the head was his only answer.

"Roll…"

"…I can't tell you, Meiru swore me to secrecy."

"Oh." A pause, and a smug grin slid across Rockman's face. "Got anything to do with Meiru being in love with Netto?"

Roll's wide, shocked eyes were all the answer he needed.

"I knew it."

"How did you find out?" Roll hissed. "It was meant to be a secret!"

"I have my ways."

"You liar…I bet you just guessed!"

"Well…yeah."

Roll laughed, then turned serious again. "You can't tell anyone, okay? Not a soul."

"My lips are sealed," Rockman vowed, raising his hand as though to take an oath.

"Keep 'em sealed," she huffed.

Rockman was still laughing as he jacked out. But not before calling, "By the way, I'm fairly sure Netto feels the same way about her."

Leaving a very shell-shocked Roll in his wake.

**oooooooo**

When Meiru went to sleep that night, Roll was still up and very much active. There was a lot to think about, she had discovered quite a bit today. She couldn't help a secretive smile at the thought that her NetOp's feelings for her childhood friend were returned. It made her want to jump for joy.

Except now she was in a moral dilemma. Should she 'help' them out, or let things continue the way they were? Her 'help' might turn out to be more of a hindrance in the end, but if left as they were now, would they ever admit it to each other?

In the end, Roll decided to let Netto and Meiru be. She made a silent promise she would only interfere in the most dire of circumstances. She couldn't think what those circumstances might be, but she was sure she'd know them when she saw them.

So Roll settled in for a well-earned rest.

**oooooooo**

_Dark. Dark and trapped and scared and hurting._

"_Come my little butterfly, one word, one simple word…and your pain can end."_

"_NO!" She wouldn't surrender, she wouldn't. Wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't._

_But how it hurt! Like needles of fire ripping at her body, like a bath in electrified acid. He was angry, she knew he was angry. He was talking to her but she was fading. Fading from awareness into either unconsciousness or deletion. So far, it had only been the former, but she knew, if things continued this way, one day it would be the later. One day he would go too far and destroy her._

_Strangely, the idea didn't frighten her. If she was deleted, she couldn't submit._

_But then sweet oblivion shattered into splinters of agony as she was yanked back to the waking world._

"_Don't faint on me yet, this is just the beginning."_

_She wanted to scream, but she was too weak. She wanted to cry, but she had no tears left. She wanted to rage and bellow and fight, she wanted to inflict on him some small fraction of the pain he had dealt to her. _

_But if she had one wish, only one, it would be to escape. In either freedom or deletion, she wished to escape from **him**._

_But she knew she did not have the strength._

_She gazed malicious pools the colour of dried blood._

Roll jerked awake, realising there were tears on her cheeks. She stayed where she was for long moments, shaking and crying silently, overwhelmed by her nightmare and the terrible, heartsick despair that still cloaked her like a burial shroud.

"Meiru," she whispered, "Meiru, wake up!"

"Hm?" the girl on the bed stirred, blinking owlishly as she turned on her nightlamp. "Roll? It's two in the morning!"

"I know, I'm sorry, it's just-" Roll broke off, shuddering so violently her teeth chattered. "The nightmare…"

Meiru was awake instantly. "It came back?"

Sleep forgotten, Meiru stumbled to her PET, clutching the casing as lieu of hugging the frightened navi within. "Oh, Roll…"

Roll sighed softly, closing her eyes. Meiru wasn't really holding her, but the simple feeling of being cared for, being loved, restored some of her shattered self-control.

"It-it was different this time. There was pain, and there was that voice, but there was also…despair. I've never felt that…hopeless, abandoned, alone…as though the only way out was if I was deleted. I just can't describe it."

Roll barely noticed the tears slipping down her face.

Meiru sat back down on her bed, the PET clutched in both hands. "It'll be alright, Roll. We'll go back to Dr. Hikari in the morning, but in the meantime, get some real sleep."

Roll made a small, terrified sound, and Meiru hastened to reassure her. "It's okay, I'll watch over you and wake you up if you start to have nightmares."

"You shouldn't do that, Meiru," Roll protested. "It's a school night…"

"I'll just take tomorrow off."

"I can't have you missing a day of school just for me!"

"Roll," Meiru began and Roll knew it was useless. Meiru never used that tone unless she was completely and utterly determined, and when she used that tone nothing and no one could budge her. "You're my best friend, and I'm not leaving you alone."

So they remained that way – a girl sitting on her bed, clutching a PET and watching the slumbering navi inside, alert for the slightest hint of distress – until morning.

**oooooooo**

"NETTO!" Rockman bellowed at the boy dozing on the bed.

Netto leapt up, got tangled in the sheets, and then fell to the floor. "What! What's wrong?"

"Meiru's calling you," Rockman answered, trying not to laugh at the spectacle Netto presented.

"Oh, okay?" Netto yawned, sitting in front of the vid-phone as he did so. "Did she have to call so early?"

"Only early by your standards, Netto," Meiru chuckled from the phone.

Netto blinked. Meiru was looking rather sallow, her usually vibrant eyes looked dull and glassy, with dark shadows underneath them. Was she sick?

"Are you okay?"

Meiru smiled at his concern. "No, I just didn't get much sleep last night."

"How come?"

"Roll's nightmares came back."

"What," Rockman yelped, "Is she okay?"

Meiru held her PET up to the screen, revealing the sleeping navi inside. Roll was oblivious to the outside world, and yet her expression was strained, as though she were waiting for some sudden pain to strike her down.

"We're both taking the day off," Meiru whispered, replacing Roll's PET on the desk. "Then we're going to see your father again."

She sighed. "I don't know why they came back or what happened to trigger them in the first place, but we can't just sit back and hope they'll go away. We have to do something!"

"I get it, Meiru," Rockman piped up, "You stayed up last night because you didn't want to leave her alone."

In truth, while he knew it was completely irrational, he felt a little guilty. Guilty about his night of calm, undisturbed rest while Roll was writhing in the grip of unseen horrors.

"I've never seen her like that," Meiru admitted quietly. "She was shaking so hard…she actually cried!"

"She cried!" Rockman said, feeling as though Blues had just punched him in the gut. "Roll cried?"

Meiru gave a miserable nod. "I told you it was bad."

"It'll be alright, Meiru," Netto echoed his words from several days ago. "And me and Rockman will come with you after school."


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"Were there any warning signs?" Yuuichiro asked Roll as he ran yet another diagnostic. "Anything that may have triggered them again?"

Roll shook her head. "The nightmares just came back. One night I had a perfect sleep, the next night it was there again, as though it had never left."

"Any differences? You did say that the voice says something different each time, but was there anything different about this dream? The feel of it? Did you see anything?"

"Actually, now that you mention it…" Roll hesitated.

"It's okay," Rockman spoke from Netto's PET, "It's okay, Roll."

The pink navi gave a tremulous smile, took a deep breath, and continued. "The other nightmares were…fear, but this…this was despair, just a kind of horrible hopelessness. I…I knew he was going to delete me…and I didn't really mind…"

Everyone swallowed. "Anything else?" Yuuichiro managed.

"Yeah," Roll answered, her voice now almost a whisper. "I remember a colour, just before I woke up. This strange red…like dried blood."

"Sounds scary," Netto muttered.

Roll laughed weakly. "So, you figure out what was the matter, Dr. Hikari?"

Yuuichiro leaned back, running a hand through his hair in blatant frustration. "Nothing! The same as last time, absolutely nothing seems out of place or disrupted. If something's going wrong, I'm not seeing it."

He paused, his exasperation almost tangible. "There is one thing we could try…"

"Yes?" Meiru prompted. "What's that?"

"Today's Friday, right?"

"Yeah."

"If you're free tonight, Meiru, bring Roll over to the Sci Labs. I'll hook her up to one of our computers and then, when she goes to sleep, I'll be able to observe exactly what her Dream Matrix is doing."

"And then you'll be able to fix it," Netto finished.

"That's the idea. So, Roll and Meiru, will I see you tonight?"

"You bet," both girls agreed.

"Hey, Netto," Rockman whispered, trying to keep his voice low so only his NetOp would hear, "Could we come too? I mean, if you have something you want to do, sure, but I just want-"

"It's fine, Rockman," Netto murmured out of the corner of his mouth. Then his voice rose in volume as he addressed his father, "Can Rockman and I come too?"

Meiru and Roll looked a little startled by the request, but Yuuichiro just smiled, "Of course."

"Thanks!"

Netto seized Meiru by the arm and proceeded to drag her – and by extension, Roll – from the room. "Now we have to go tire Roll out so she'll go to sleep really quickly tonight!"

"What exactly do you suggest?" Meiru said, trying to gather her dignity as she was hauled from the Sci Lab.

"Netbattle!"

Roll chuckled, if a little nervously. "Is that Netto's answer to everything?"

"I know what you mean," Rockman chortled, "There are times I wonder about him…"

Yuuichiro watched the two humans and their navis leave with a secretive smile on his face.

**oooooooo**

Meiru and Roll ended up fighting in several Netbattles (winning them all), until Roll declared she was utterly exhausted and couldn't summon up a single attack anymore. They had met up with Glyde almost immediately afterwards, who been sent by Yaito to invite both their NetOps to the ice-cream parlour.

But when Yaito invited them over to her house for dinner, both Netto and Meiru made their excuses.

"Already have plans to eat together?" the heiress asked, one eyebrow raised pointedly.

Both blushed bright red. Meiru suddenly found the floor very interesting, and Netto stuttered out the explanation.

"-and so we're going back tonight so my dad can make Roll's nightmares stop."

Yaito's slight smirk had vanished. "That sounds awful, poor Roll!"

Meiru smiled. For all her faults, Yaito could be quite considerate…in her own way and in her own time, of course.

"Those nightmares do sound most distressing," Glyde remarked, "And yet Dr. Hikari was unable to locate any problems?"

"Not a single glitch," Roll sighed. "And the worst part? I can't think of anything that might have triggered them. I mean, why now? What's happened recently that could give me nightmares?"

"Indeed," Glyde mused. "Our capture by Dark Rockman was most distressing, but I cannot picture it giving the nightmares you have described."

Roll wrinkled her nose. "It wasn't all that scary."

Glyde made no attempt to hide his shock. "Of all of us, I would think you would be the last to say that!"

"What do you mean? I was in stasis the entire time, not exactly an experience that'll scar you."

Glyde's eyes showed utter incomprehension. "But…you weren't," he said slowly, as though trying to break it to her gently.

"What do you mean?" Rockman asked, his eyes never wavering from the shell-shocked Roll.

A beep went off from Roll's PET, breaking the tense tableau. The pink navi opened the incoming mail, still preoccupied with Glyde's assertion she hadn't been in stasis. He sounded so sure, but if she had been conscious, why didn't she remember a thing about it?

The mail was from Dr. Hikari, calling Roll and Meiru back to the Sci Labs. They were preparing to depart with Netto and Rockman, when Glyde mentioned to the NetOps the strange phenomenon of Roll's memory loss. So Glyde and Yaito came to the Sci Labs as well.

**oooooooo**

"So, Glyde says Roll wasn't in stasis while they were prisoners," Netto explained to his father.

"Which doesn't make sense," Meiru sighed. "Because Roll doesn't remember a thing. She told me everything from the beginning of her capture to when Rockman got them out was a complete blank."

"But Glyde says otherwise," Yuuichiro mused. He addressed Yaito's navi, "Did you actually see Roll conscious during your capture? Did she seem aware of her surroundings?"

"Yes, to both questions," Glyde answered.

"Could you bring up the memory for us?"

Glyde drew a window in cyberspace, then paused as he sent his memory data to project into the window. Everyone – Yuuichiro, Netto, Meiru, Yaito, Rockman and of course, Roll – leaned forward to watch.

They were looking out of Glyde's eyes, which was a little disorientating at first, but Roll supposed that was how memories worked. The gaze landed on Iceman, bound with glowing bands, and drifted down to Glyde's own limbs that were similarly tied. Then the view lifted upwards…to Roll.

And Roll felt a cold thrill rush through her. She _was_ conscious, undoubtedly so.

The Roll on the screen was restrained the same way Glyde and Iceman were – glowing bands encircling her wrists and ankles – but, unlike the others, she was held in the grasp of Dark Rockman.

The stronger navi had her by her arm, one hand gripping her chin between his thumb and forefinger, examining her face as though speculating on something. For some reason, the scene made Roll shiver. As though sensing her distress, Rockman reached out and slid his fingers through hers. Roll grasped his hand gratefully.

She was pleased when her on-screen counterpart jerked her chin from Dark Rockman's grip, snarling out, "Get off me!"

Dark Rockman seemed downright amused by her resistance. "Aren't you a fiery one?"

She glared at him and he laughed. His fingers brushed across her cheek and Roll flinched, trying to crane her head away.

Still watching the screen, Roll shivered. She felt as though something were stirring in the depths of her mind – as though she could feel those cold fingertips ghosting over her face. Rockman felt her tremble, and his hand tightened on hers.

Roll tried to divorce herself from the pink navi on the screen. She tried to concentrate on the blanks in her memory, trying to feel as though she were watching a movie, nothing but actors on a screen, nothing that had any meaning to her. But the way she was shaking, the way she could almost feel Dark Rockman's touch, even now, told her different.

The figure on the screen fought Rockman's duplicate like a wildcat, back arching, body twisting frantically. The struggling duo began to get smaller, and the watchers realised that this was when Glyde was pulled away. Iceman was being hauled off beside him…but Roll had remained with Dark Rockman.

The more Rockman was seeing of this memory, the less he liked it.

"Let go of me you demented, megalomaniacal doppelganger!" the on-screen Roll bellowed.

Dark Rockman slung her over his shoulder like a sack of grain and began to walk out of Glyde's view, ignoring the way Roll struggled, kicking and writhing madly.

By now, Glyde had obviously been dragged some distance away, as the figures began to disappear as Dark Rockman exited, Roll's shrieks echoing behind. Both vanished from Glyde's view, but their voices continued to drift towards him.

"Put me down!"

"Easy, little butterfly, you'll only get hurt."

Then, just before the sounds faded, a scream. Roll screaming in utter agony.

Glyde's window closed.

**oooooooo**

"I don't remember that," Roll breathed, trembling slightly. She was still clutching Rockman's hand, so hard she knew she must be hurting him, but just couldn't seem to let go.

She looked at Glyde with wild eyes. "I don't remember anything about it! There's just a big blank in my memory…I don't…"

Roll trailed off, swallowing harshly and staring miserably into space.

"Glyde," Yuuichiro said, apparently making some effort to speak calmly. "What happened afterwards, do you remember anything that could have triggered Roll's memory loss?"

The taller navi shook his head, looking sympathetically at Roll. "No, I'm sorry. Iceman and I were held with several other navis, but we never saw Miss Roll. I believe…" he paused, turning to Roll. "I believe you remained with Dark Rockman for the duration of your imprisonment, though what he did to you, or why you can't remember it, I cannot say."

"Creepy," Netto said into the following silence.

"He called me little butterfly…" Roll whispered. "Just like the dreams…"

"Is that it?" Meiru asked, "Are Roll's dreams actually her memories resurfacing or something like that?"

"Perhaps," Yuuichiro conceded, "Either way, we may be able to find the answers tonight."


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Barely half an hour after Yaito and Glyde left, Roll was sleeping peacefully.

"Shouldn't she be dreaming already?" Rockman asked.

Yuuichiro shook his head, "It takes at least an hour to enter the stage of sleep that produces dreams, so we've got quite a wait ahead of us."

"Anything weird yet?" Netto leaned over his father's shoulder to examine the screen.

"Nothing, she appears to be sleeping normally."

There was silence for several moments, then Maylu spoke up. "What's that?" She pointed to the layout of Roll's programs, where a slender thread of data was trailing from one program into another.

Yuuichiro's eyes widened. "That's her memory bank! Something's feeding into her mind!"

His fingers tapped frantically on the keyboard, bringing up the schematics of

Roll's memory bank. The program seemed to be going haywire, it looked like it was trying to access a file that didn't exist.

Roll's brow furrowed, and her hands curled into fists.

"Dr. Hikari, I think she's starting to dream!" Maylu yelped, as Roll's back arched and she let out a keening wail.

"It's not a dream!" Yuuichiro said, hands still flying over the keys. "It's a memory! We've got all we need, Rockman, wake her up!"

Rockman leaned over Roll, lightly tapping one slender shoulder. "Roll, wake up!"

Roll jerked as though trying to move away from him, whimpering low in her throat.

"Roll!" he yelled, "Roll, wake up!"

The pink navi gave a sudden, spasmodic thrash, then bolted upright with a deafening scream. Her eyes were wild, and the utter terror in their depths tore at Rockman's heart.

Roll seemed to become aware of her surroundings, and as she did so, her eyes flooded with tears. She hurled herself at Rockman, catching him around the neck and sending them both reeling to the floor. He landed on his back with Roll on top of him, her arms holding him so tightly he was glad he didn't need to breathe. Her face was hidden in his neck, and he could feel her body trembling with the force of her sobs.

"It's okay," he whispered, his arms coming up to hold her while she cried against him. "It's okay, Roll, it's okay."

"I saw…I s-saw him…" she choked out.

"Who, Roll?" Rockman asked urgently. "Who did you see?"

The pink navi bit her lip, tears running over her cheeks. "It was…it was…"

"It's alright, Roll," Meiru tried to reassure her.

Roll shuddered in Rockman's arms, just once.

"It was…Dark Rockman," she whispered, as though afraid just saying his name would bring him down on them.

Like the bogeyman.

**oooooooo**

"It's a memory?" Roll gasped, as Yuuichiro explained what had happened.

"In essence, yes, but it's not that simple. As far as your memory banks are concerned, these memories don't exist. But you can access them in your unconscious state, which seems to suggest one thing...partial deletion."

"Come again?" Meiru blinked.

"For some reason, someone tried to delete Roll's memories of these events. But they were only partially successful. It worked for a time, but your memories began to filter back to you in the only they could – through your dreams."

"So that...actually happened?" Roll squeaked, ruthlessly squashing the urge to throw up. What would she bring up anyway? Chunks of data?

"So the question is; what do you want to do about it?" Yuuichiro asked. "I could probably restore the memories...but do you want me to?"

Roll thought for several long moments. Did she really have any choice? Did she want to spend the rest of her life having half-formed, utterly terrifying nightmares?

She bit her lip, and nodded slowly.

**oooooooo**

"So...what does this do again?" Rockman asked, watching Yuuichiro tapping away at the keyboard.

"When you delete a file from a computer, it still leaves an impression. And if you know your way around the system, you can recall it. So with a bit of fiddling, I can recall Roll's memory of what...of what Dark Rockman did to her."

Roll didn't respond, trying to adjust to the feeling of her data and programs being examined. No matter how many times she went through this, it still felt just plain _strange_.

For several seconds, the only sound was the hum and whir of the computers. Everyone was trying to digest what had just been learned.

It was obvious Dark Rockman had tortured Roll...but to what ends? What could he have hoped to gain by such cruelty? And what had happened to erase her memory of it?

Yuuichiro located the file's 'echo', and with several swift programmed commands, he restored it.

And all watching saw Roll go completely rigid, her eyes opening wide, her face twisting in horror as her memory was restored.

**oooooooo**

_Roll wriggled, trying to free herself from the bonds that held her wrists and ankles. With a bit of skillful maneuvering, they slipped from her limbs. _

_But getting out of the cell was another story. Roll was surprised at that – the digital world was very malleable, and it was almost impossible to imprison a navi somewhere unless they were kept in stasis._

_The wall warped, but it was not of her doing. Roll instinctively backed away, her fists clenched. Dark Rockman entered, smiling in a way Roll instantly disliked._

"_Hello, my little butterfly."_

_The nickname sent a shiver through Roll's body. "What do you want?"_

_He didn't seem to hear her. "My little butterfly...you're so beautiful..."_

_Roll wondered if it was possible to hyperventilate when you didn't actually breathe. She was pressed against the wall, and trying to control her urge to curl up in a ball._

"_I have a proposition for you," Dark Rockman smirked. _

"_And what's that?" Roll snapped, trying to bolster her courage._

"_Join me."_

_For a moment, Roll was certain she hadn't heard him correctly. "Me? Join you?"_

_He nodded._

"_You're crazy!" she exploded, spitting the words at him like a cobra's venom._

_He smiled, but the expression was cruel. "You'll think differently, in time. I can be very...persuasive."_

_Roll swallowed...hard. "Why me?" It seemed selfish, but she couldn't help asking. What was so special about her. "Why not any of the others?"_

"_You, my little butterfly, you're special."_

_Fear rocked her, but she knew she couldn't give in. "Don't call me that. I'm not a butterfly, and I'm certainly not yours!"_

"_You should be more grateful. I'm offering you a choice, which is more than your friends can say. So, what is your answer?"_

"_NO!"_

_Dark Rockman's answer came, but not in words. Lightning snapped from his hands, lancing through her body like a living thing._

_Roll screamed. The level of agony the electricity dealt was astounding. She was dimly aware of her knees buckling, her body spasming as she slumped to the floor, but all that really registered was the pain._

_Then it was over, as swiftly as it had begun. Roll was left, weak and shaking, on the floor as Dark Rockman opened a door in the wall and stepped through._

"_Just a taste of what I can do to you," he told her. "I trust that next time, you'll be more accommodating."_

**oooooooo**

_It began from that moment – the hideous ordeal that was to later haunt Roll's dreams. Each time Dark Rockman arrived in her cell, he would demand that she join him. Each time, Roll refused._

_And each time, she was punished for it._

_She came to herself again, somewhat, on the floor, the haze of pain clouding her vision finally clearing. Dark Rockman was speaking to her, sounding as though he were at some sort of tea party._

"_I'd rather not hurt you. And I am sure you do not enjoy this…"_

_Pain, a hideous, electrifying agony beyond description. She screamed – it was all she could do._

"_What will it be, my little butterfly?"_

_Her mouth worked, and she tried to summon the energy to speak._

"_What will it be?"_

_Her lips began to form the word. _

"_Yes…or no?"_

"_...no..." The one word that had become her mantra, her prayer._

_His face twisted in rage, and she felt the pain begin again._

**oooooooo**

_Sometimes, she wondered if his torture had permanently damaged her programming. When she wondered at all, that is. Most of the time, she floated in a half-aware haze, not truly registering what was happening to her._

_Some things registered, of course._

_Dark. Dark and trapped and scared and hurting._

"_Come my little butterfly, one word, one simple word…and your pain can end."_

"_NO!" She wouldn't surrender, she wouldn't. Wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't._

_But how it hurt! Like needles of fire ripping at her body, like a bath in electrified acid. He was angry, she knew he was angry. He was talking to her but she was fading. Fading from awareness into either unconsciousness or deletion. So far, it had only been the former, but she knew, if things continued this way, one day it would be the later. One day he would go too far and destroy her._

_Strangely, the idea didn't frighten her. If she was deleted, she couldn't submit._

_But then sweet oblivion shattered into splinters of agony as she was yanked back to the waking world._

"_Don't faint on me yet, this is just the beginning."_

_She wanted to scream, but she was too weak. She wanted to cry, but she had no tears left. She wanted to rage and bellow and fight, she wanted to inflict on him some small fraction of the pain he had dealt to her. _

_But if she had one wish, only one, it would be to escape. In either freedom or deletion, she wished to escape from **him**._

_But she knew she did not have the strength._

_She gazed malicious pools the colour of dried blood. Her eyes closed, not wanting to look at him, not wanting to acknowledge his existence. _

_A voice drifted to her ears. Not Dark Rockman's, someone was speaking to her tormentor._

"_If Rockman ever finds out what you're doing to her, you'll be lucky if he deletes you quickly."_

"_He won't find out."_

"_Oh really?"_

_And then the world dissolved._

**oooooooo**

_Roll sensed the presence of another in her cell. She knew who it was, so didn't bother to even turn towards Dark Rockman. He actually seemed strangely agitated, and she felt a burst of satisfaction that this time, he was the one suffering._

"_...don't have much time..." he muttered._

_He turned her over, and she didn't fight. She didn't know if she **could** fight, in the state she was in. She felt like there was a layer of cotton wool wrapped around her mind, and everything was filtering to her too slowly to process._

"_...if he finds out...no matter, he won't find out...have to erase it...rush job...will it work properly? Have to risk it..."_

_Roll had no idea what he was babbling about. And when she felt him probing at her memories, blanking out the long era of horror, she actually felt relieved._

**oooooooo**

"He tortured me," Roll whispered, her voice dull. "He kept asking me to join him, and every time I said 'no', he just..."

She broke off. Meiru looked like she was about to throw up, and even Netto and his father looked a little paler than usual. And Roll couldn't look at Rockman.

The blue navi beside her was reeling. He'd suspected something bad, but nothing like this. What could Dark Rockman have possibly wanted with Roll?

Unless...a sneaking, horrible suspicion bloomed in Rockman's mind. He knew that several aspects of his personality had transferred to Dark Rockman, even though his duplicate seemed to hate and scorn them...was it possible that his love for Roll had transferred to Dark Rockman too?

And the psyche of Dark Rockman had no room for love. Within his shadowed mind, had love twisted into dark obsession?

"He was scared of you," Roll said suddenly. Her eyes were still averted, but it was easy to tell she was addressing Rockman.

"He was?" Rockman repeated blankly, yanked out of his thoughts.

Roll nodded. "That's why he tried to delete my memories...it was a rush job...he'd heard you were coming...and I remember someone telling him that...that if you ever found out what he'd done to me...he'd be lucky if you deleted him quickly."

Surprisingly, Rockman hadn't actually considered that. What he'd do if Dark Rockman was still around, what he would have done if he'd known of Roll's torture when he faced him...

Navis were not meant to growl – at least, not humanoid ones – but growl Rockman did. Like a feral animal. The NetOps blinked, and Roll actually jumped in shock.

"Rockman...?" Netto asked, his voice wary.

"I'm fine," Rockman said, making a conscious effort to unclench his fists.

"Can...uh..." Roll sounded timid, which in itself was unusual – it wasn't like Roll to be timid. "Can we go home now, Meiru?"

"Sure," the redhead nodded, "I think you've earned some rest."

Roll jacked out of the main computer, and Meiru left quietly. Netto opened his mouth, seemingly about to say something...but then he closed it, and simply watched them leave.

"Are you okay?" Yuuichiro asked Rockman, who was still scowling.

"Why ask me? I'm not the one he terrorised!" Rockman snapped, then instantly regretted being so harsh. "Sorry...it's just..."

"A lot to take in," Netto muttered, looking at the door through which Roll and Meiru had left. "I mean, I knew Dark Rockman was bad, but I never thought..."

"He'd go this far," Rockman finished.

They both looked at Netto's father when he snorted.

"What?"

"Finishing each other's sentences?" Yuuichiro chuckled. "Sometimes the connection between you two borders on creepy."

Rockman snorted as well, but the worry didn't leave his eyes. "Will Roll be okay?"

"She'll be fine," Netto said confidently. "She's tough."

Yuuichiro was more temperate in his answer. "I think she'll pull through. One of the most traumatizing factors about her nightmares was that they were just impressions – images and feelings that never coalesced into a recognisable image. Now that she knows what happened...it will help."

"How will it _help_?"

"Now she knows what she's fighting."


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

It took time, but eventually Roll stopped jumping at shadows. She stopped cringing every time she heard the crackle of electricity. She stopped screaming whenever someone sneaked up behind her.

It wasn't easy – she found that nearly everything around her reminded her of what had been done to her. But with a lot of patience, a lot of baby steps, and a bucket or two of tears, she found she was starting to get better.

But to her bewilderment, Rockman appeared to be nothing short of morose these days. He seemed to be brooding on something, at times he even looked...guilty?

Roll was nothing if not persistent, and she was absolutely determined to find out what was bothering him.

"Rockman?"

Rockman jerked as though given an electric shock. "Roll?"

She smiled and sat down beside him, on the rooftop of a cyber building overlooking Internet City. "So...what's up?"

She'd meant it to sound friendly and innocently inquiring, but Rockman's face grew dark, and he looked away. "I should be asking you that."

"I'm fine," she waved a hand dismissively. "No nightmares or anything – I'm really getting better."

Rockman nodded, but didn't say anything.

He couldn't shake the feeling that Roll's ordeal had been his fault. Logically, he knew there was no reason to feel that way – he hadn't known Dark Rockman would become obsessed with her, hadn't known that he would take advantage of her capture to try and force her to his side...

"Are you okay?" Roll asked, noticing the dark look on his face.

"Fine."

"Liar."

Rockman's head whipped up. "I'm fine!" he repeated, a bit more forcefully than he intended.

"And I say you're lying!" Roll snapped back.

And that was it. Rockman's guilt and self-hatred exploded.

"_I told you – I'm FINE!_"

"_Then why have you been looking so guilt-ridden for the past few weeks?_"

"_Because what happened to you was my fault!_"

"_It was not!_"

"_Yes, it was!_"

"_How?_"

If Rockman had been thinking straight, he would have censored his answer before he spoke. But he wasn't thinking straight.

"_Because I'm in love with you, and that somehow transferred to Dark Rockman, and that's when he became obsessed with you!_"

Oops.

Roll could tell Rockman hadn't realised the words had slipped past his lips until he finished speaking. She saw his eyes widen, his face flush, and he started to turn away...

But she was quicker. Roll snagged his shoulder and held him in place.

"There is no way you admit something like that and walk away," she hissed. "Especially not before I get to return the sentiment."

Whatever Rockman had been expecting, that wasn't it.

"You..." he murmured weakly. "You...me...you...?"

Roll grinned, fighting down a shy blush. "Surprised?"

Rockman nodded, the expression of utter shock on his face almost comical. Roll bit her lip and looked down.

"Do you really...?" the blue navi asked, as though not daring to believe this could possibly be real.

Roll nodded, then asked a question of her own. "Do you really think...it was your fault?"

She felt the shift in his stance, saw his eyes dart to the ground, and he didn't even have to answer. She knew.

Roll whacked him on the shoulder. "Idiot."

Surprised by the sudden attack, Rockman only blinked at her.

"It was far from your fault," Roll continued. "Can you see into the future? Can you read minds? How could you have possibly known what would happen?"

"I..." Rockman was lost for words.

Roll cocked her head, her expression seeming to dare him to defend his guilt.

"Well, anything sounds stupid when you say it like that..." he grumbled.

Roll giggled, and kissed him. Just because she could.

Whatever the future held, they were facing it together.

**End.**


End file.
